Editorial
Armed Forces Remembrance Day & The Enemy Within
Another Remembrance Day for our men and women under arms is here. Nigeria celebrates the Day on 15 January every year. The date replaces the Armistice or Poppy Day which used to be celebrated on every 11 November when the country was under British colonialism. The change in date was made to commemorate the end of the fratricidal in-house war of 1967 – 1970. On the the hand, the Armistice Day marked the remembrance of military personnel, who lost their lives in the First World (1914 – 1918) and World War 11 (1939-1945).
Nigeria marked the Poppy Day not only because it was then under British colonial rule, but also because it lost some of its sons who fought on the side of the Allied Forces (a coalition of nations, initially led by France, Great Britain, and Russia, who fought against the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire) from 1914-1918; later joined by Italy (1915); Japan, and the United States (1917); alongside Serbia, Belgium, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) in World War 1.
The Remembrance Day is today marked to also remember heroes of the Nigerian Civil War. It is now called Armed Forces Remembrance and Celebrations Day, and is meant to also celebrate serving officers and men, who through their blood and sweat have kept the country together in spite of the centrifugal forces of ethnicism, religionism, corruption and parochial politics of prebendalism and kleptomania.
It is concerning that 80 years after World War 11, and the many decades of the UN, the world does not seem to learn enough about the destructions, displacements, and diseases that follow wars. As of today, there are wars raging in several parts of the world; namely, Russia against Ukraine; civil war in Sudan, DR Congo, and Yemen; among others. What are common to all these strifes are that soldiers are in the front lines, and are, therefore, often the first casualties; lives and properties are lost, civilians are impacted, education, social life and community development is arrested.
In Nigeria, the lessons our civil war are yet to be fully learnt by our politicians 50 years after. This is why they have chosen greed as their creed, power-grab as their abiding principle, and malfeasance as their motto. To worsen matters, the Muhammadu Buhari regime recruited so-called repentant Islamic terrorists into the Nigerian army. It is not that he did not know that by the Islamic principle of taqiyya, those terrorists were dissembling, but because he himself, from several indicators, seemed to believe in the Islamisation of Nigeria, appeared to have reasoned that it would be easier to take over the country through the infiltration of the army. This has complexified the war against terrorism as the enemy within is often more devious and vicious than the enemy without.
According to the Global Terrorism Index (GTI), 2025, Nigeria is placed 6th as the most terrorised country globally. At the centre of the bloody violence are our military and members of other security agencies, not to forget the collateral damage on the members of their families, friends, and other victims of terror. But the powers that be, choosing politics above polity, have failed to reckon with the fact that a bleeding country is a pitiable people. This has affected our agro-growth, social life, and development generally.
For us at WatchmanPost, this year’s celebration must not just start and end with speeches by political officeholders and laying of wreaths, as has often been the case back in the day. This is because of the colour and column insecurity in the country has taken since 2009 when the Islamic terror gang, Boko Haram, re-tooled its belief beyond mere verbal advocacy. In the intervening years between then and now, tens of thousands of our country men and women have been killed, thousands of our service men and women have been neutralised, even as thousands of ordinary Nigerians have lost their homes, spouses, children and means of livelihood. The response of those in power has been a mix of brief periods of commitment to obliterating the insecurity, half-hearted attempts at stopping it, and clear impressions of complicity and insipidity.
WatchmanPost hereby calls on the President Bola Tinubu-led administration to, especially now that the US Government has shown more than a passing interest in the insecurity situation in the country, to take a hard-line stand against all acts of terrorism that give the country the unenviable picture of a killing field that we now have. The easiest way to this is to go after the sponsors of terror and bring them to book. The government can only be pretending if it says it does not know these scumbags. Government should look into the military itself to identify and root out all moles that keep putting our fighting forces in jeopardy during operations. The families of fallen soldiers, especially their young widows and orphans, should be provided for to ease their pains of bereavement. The government must enhance support for our military, demand accountability from their superiors, go after those enabling insecurity that keeps costing the lives of our soldiers, and stop negotiating with terrorists. We believe that once the war against the enemy within is won, we would appropriately pay due respect to our armed forces as we would have by this helped them operate at their optimal professional height.
Another Remembrance Day for our men and women under arms is here. Nigeria celebrates the Day on 15 January every year. The date replaces the Armistice or Poppy Day which used to be celebrated on every 11 November when the country was under British colonialism. The change in date was made to commemorate the end of the fratricidal in-house war of 1967 – 1970. On the the hand, the Armistice Day marked the remembrance of military personnel, who lost their lives in the First World (1914 – 1918) and World War 11 (1939-1945).
Nigeria marked the Poppy Day not only because it was then under British colonial rule, but also because it lost some of its sons who fought on the side of the Allied Forces (a coalition of nations, initially led by France, Great Britain, and Russia, who fought against the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire) from 1914-1918; later joined by Italy (1915); Japan, and the United States (1917); alongside Serbia, Belgium, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) in World War 1.
The Remembrance Day is today marked to also remember heroes of the Nigerian Civil War. It is now called Armed Forces Remembrance and Celebrations Day, and is meant to also celebrate serving officers and men, who through their blood and sweat have kept the country together in spite of the centrifugal forces of ethnicism, religionism, corruption and parochial politics of prebendalism and kleptomania.
It is concerning that 80 years after World War 11, and the many decades of the UN, the world does not seem to learn enough about the destructions, displacements, and diseases that follow wars. As of today, there are wars raging in several parts of the world; namely, Russia against Ukraine; civil war in Sudan, DR Congo, and Yemen; among others. What are common to all these strifes are that soldiers are in the front lines, and are, therefore, often the first casualties; lives and properties are lost, civilians are impacted, education, social life and community development is arrested.
In Nigeria, the lessons our civil war are yet to be fully learnt by our politicians 50 years after. This is why they have chosen greed as their creed, power-grab as their abiding principle, and malfeasance as their motto. To worsen matters, the Muhammadu Buhari regime recruited so-called repentant Islamic terrorists into the Nigerian army. It is not that he did not know that by the Islamic principle of taqiyya, those terrorists were dissembling, but because he himself, from several indicators, seemed to believe in the Islamisation of Nigeria, appeared to have reasoned that it would be easier to take over the country through the infiltration of the army. This has complexified the war against terrorism as the enemy within is often more devious and vicious than the enemy without.
According to the Global Terrorism Index (GTI), 2025, Nigeria is placed 6th as the most terrorised country globally. At the centre of the bloody violence are our military and members of other security agencies, not to forget the collateral damage on the members of their families, friends, and other victims of terror. But the powers that be, choosing politics above polity, have failed to reckon with the fact that a bleeding country is a pitiable people. This has affected our agro-growth, social life, and development generally.
For us at WatchmanPost, this year’s celebration must not just start and end with speeches by political officeholders and laying of wreaths, as has often been the case back in the day. This is because of the colour and column insecurity in the country has taken since 2009 when the Islamic terror gang, Boko Haram, re-tooled its belief beyond mere verbal advocacy. In the intervening years between then and now, tens of thousands of our country men and women have been killed, thousands of our service men and women have been neutralised, even as thousands of ordinary Nigerians have lost their homes, spouses, children and means of livelihood. The response of those in power has been a mix of brief periods of commitment to obliterating the insecurity, half-hearted attempts at stopping it, and clear impressions of complicity and insipidity.
WatchmanPost hereby calls on the President Bola Tinubu-led administration to, especially now that the US Government has shown more than a passing interest in the insecurity situation in the country, to take a hard-line stand against all acts of terrorism that give the country the unenviable picture of a killing field that we now have. The easiest way to this is to go after the sponsors of terror and bring them to book. The government can only be pretending if it says it does not know these scumbags. Government should look into the military itself to identify and root out all moles that keep putting our fighting forces in jeopardy during operations. The families of fallen soldiers, especially their young widows and orphans, should be provided for to ease their pains of bereavement. The government must enhance support for our military, demand accountability from their superiors, go after those enabling insecurity that keeps costing the lives of our soldiers, and stop negotiating with terrorists. We believe that once the war against the enemy within is won, we would appropriately pay due respect to our armed forces as we would have by this helped them operate at their optimal professional height.
